


you're scared to die alone, i know

by moonbeatblues



Series: harder to speak when you're holding the machine [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: .....and botw au, M/M, and in my head fathoms was a Nasty one, bless u anon, god willing i'll expand on this, i like. i need to write about both of fjord's mechs though. to get the picture.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23261215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonbeatblues/pseuds/moonbeatblues
Summary: Caduceus Clay is a strange one.He could say that— has, actually, said that— about everyone else here, but with Caduceus he really means it. He says he’s from somewhere up north, out of Empire territory, and he flies like it, too.That is to say, Caduceus Clay kinda flies like shit.(expanding the mech au on a request)
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord, little a fjolly. as a treat
Series: harder to speak when you're holding the machine [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672555
Comments: 4
Kudos: 71





	you're scared to die alone, i know

**Author's Note:**

> if. i end up writing all of this, i'll probably end up incorporating these into the larger one?
> 
> title's from water by jamaican queens-- my playlist for this au, by virtue of the aesthetic, has to be a lot less gentle than my usual music. and thus.

“Hello, Mister Fjord.”

He startles, almost pitches over the railing.

Caduceus Clay is a strange one.

He could say that— _has_ , actually, said that— about everyone else here, but with Caduceus he really means it. He says he’s from somewhere up north, out of Empire territory, and he flies like it, too.

That is to say, Caduceus Clay kinda flies like shit.

Not that he really _needs_ to fly well— the Grove’s a tank, it’s got those big beetle wings and debris just kinda glances off ‘em, and unlike Jessie he seems perfectly content to stay back and run support instead of anything fancy. The Grove has these wicked little drones it sends out, like tiny versions of itself, and Caduceus lets them crawl all over him when they’re back in the hangar for repairs.

It’s a little creepy, maybe, but mostly Fjord’s just fascinated.

(“She’s a family heirloom, actually,” Caduceus hums, rubbing at the snout of the Grove, where dust has collected in ghostly sprays. “You wanna see something?”

“Uh—" Fjord says, and looks around. They usually leave Caduceus to fix the Grove himself, he’s noticed, the techs. This far end of the hangar is quiet, a little dark. “Sure.”

Caduceus smiles, and there’s a second where Fjord’s waiting for him to do something, waiting to see what Caduceus wants to show him.

Then, he sees it.

The Grove is _moving_.

Just a little motion, leaning herself against Caduceus’s hand, but it still stops him dead.

Caleb would say there was someone or something else in the cockpit, maybe, but Fjord doesn’t even know how Caduceus gets _into_ the Grove. There’s a half-open cockpit near the head, and he sees Caduceus _in_ it, alright, but how he gets there from here, Fjord has no idea.

_Neither do the techs,_ he thinks. And Caduceus really isn’t the type for autopilot. Parts of the Grove are made of _wood_ , for god’s sake— glossy, petrified wood inlaid with these crystalline panels.

“How—"

“She was a gift, you know?” Caduceus says, and lets his hand fall. The Grove settles back onto its legs, silently. “Not just to me. My family, they’ve had her for more generations than we can count.”

If Fjord knows one thing, it’s mechs don’t last that long. Passing your life’s work onto your kid— your partner, even— that’s getting lucky. Maybe not with him and Vandren— and, well, Avantika, too, it’s starting to seem— but that’s different.

Caduceus’s doesn’t seem like his kind of different.

Caduceus seems a little like a better kind of different.

“Yeah?”

"She isn’t always a beetle, either. Clarabelle had her last, and then—" He frowns. “Well, i think the Mother called her home before she sent her to me. I don’t know what happened.”

“The Mother?”

“She made the Grove,” Caduceus says, a little dreamily. “And she fixes her up every time the next person needs her, so she’s exactly what they need. So she suits them.”

He’s quiet, for a long moment. Fjord is about to ask, and the reason he doesn’t quite get to it is that there’s just so _much_ to ask— Fjord has never heard of another Maker like his, the idea that there could be someone else, some _thing_ else than this, is so immediately intoxicating and terrifying it steals his breath. And Caduceus seems almost choked up, for perhaps the first time, Fjord has _no_ idea what to do with _that_.

But Caduceus turns back to him again, and smiles. It’s a lovely, dizzy sort of thing, a lazy pull to the corners of his mouth, watching Fjord with those strange, wide eyes. “Do you think she suits me, Mister Fjord?”)

(He does, indeed.)

Below them, in the repair bay, Fathoms is getting looked over. Under the grime and silt of the last mission, the places where it had eaten up the scrap of the Weaver, Summer’s Dance and all, still show through. When Fathoms recycles something, it’s never subtle.

_Always wants to show them off_ , Fjord thinks, and the chill that runs down his spine when he looks at the half-exposed core, lidded like some awful eye, feels even colder than it had yesterday. _Even friends are prizes._

“Are you ever afraid that it’ll eat you someday?”

_Yes_.

“What?”

It’s really impressive, how Caduceus gets at what he’s thinking without even trying. Fuck’s sake, he’s not even looking at Fjord, just down over the rail at the big underbelly jaws of Fathoms where they’ve been pried open to fix the broken teeth.

“Such big teeth,” is all Caduceus has to say to that, “Is it even possible to not be hungry, with teeth like that?”

“I—"

“I spoke to the Mother,” Caduceus says, and looks over at him. And I think she can help you.”

“Deuces, I, it’s not that simple—“

It’s too late for him, isn’t it? The promise of it, of piloting Uk’otoa _himself_ , like not even Vandren could, for all his talk, used to be so alluring it was like the want was gnawing at his insides. Now, though, he just feels empty. It’s stupid, it’s in every book, but he wonders for a second about what it means to be a pilot. About which of them, him and the big snake buried below the sea, is piloting which.

“It can be, though,” Caduceus says gently. “If you let it.”

Fjord looks down at Fathoms, thinks about the glitter of the Weaver under the moon and wonders if he can salvage the parts of the Summer’s Dance. He wakes up, some nights, eyes stinging with tears, missing Molly something fucking _fierce_ , and wants to tear the gold back out of Fathoms.

_You didn’t earn this,_ he thinks. _Chew up someone else’s grave._

“I’ll think on it.”

“It’s your decision.” Caduceus covers Fjord’s hands, clenched as they are on the rail, with his own until they loosen. “But you don’t have to live like this.”

He can see it, then, in that moment. Caduceus passes something into him, some divine spark from his Mother, and in his mind’s eye he sees himself in the cockpit of something bright and cold and sharp, gleaming like snow beneath the sun. Like silver to a forgotten gold.

“Maybe,” he says, and it rasps traitorously from his throat. “Can I be there, again, when you call her?”

“Of course,” Caduceus says, “she’d be happy to see you,” and maybe the warmth is slight, but it comes after so much nothing, after so much cold, and there in the hangar it feels like Caduceus has dropped the sun into Fjord’s chest, warm and searing and alive.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @seafleece on tumblr! i have a little handful already but i'm always open to requests, especially right now


End file.
